knew the good man had stinted himself of many of the little comforts to which, from his youth up, he had been accustomed, in order to meet the expenditure of my education; while the unsuspecting and unlimited confidence he reposed in me, the care with which he constantly avoided the least allusion to pecuniary matters, even when I sought for opportunities to render him an account of my disbursements, and the general delicacy of his conduct in concealing from me the difficulties ne had to contend with in raising, at the commencement of every session, the necessary supplies, formed altogether so powerful an appeal to every honourable and manly principle in my nature, that I should have regarded myself as the veriest wretch that ever lived, had I suffered myself to sin against so much goodness.

Having completed my course of philosophy, I entered, as a matter of course, on the study of theology; and seeing my father bent on transforming me into a parson, I gave as much attention to the subject as I possibly could command, and, by tasking my self to a regular course and quantum of reading, endeavoured to acquire a competent knowledge of the endless controversies in which every part of scholastic divinity is unhappily involved. By a rigid prosecution of this scheme, I hoped at once to remove some ugly doubts which had long ere this taken possession of my mind in regard to certain parts of the Christian system, and to conquer the repugnance I felt, both to the study itself, and to the profession for which it was to qualify. My efforts were, however, vain; I found myself entangled in the mazes of a labyrinth through which I could find no thread to guide my steps. The darkness of scepticism thickened fast around my head. In such a state of painful bewilderment, the mind, oppressed and sinking under the exhaustion of uncertainty, has only two resources-infidelity, or an infallible church. I chose the former; and, from that moment, resolved, that I would avail myself of the very earliest opportunity to communicate to my father the change which had taken place in my sentiments, and to adjure him to suffer me to abandon a

profession which I could no longer pursue without infamy and dishonour. I am told, that every church contains many secret infidels in her bosom; but this I am inclined to regard as a base and malicious calumny. The man who, with sentiments and opinions akin to those which, at the period in question, unhappily took such firm hold of my mind, continues in a profession which obliges him every moment to give the lie to his own heart, and obtrudes the conviction of systematic perjury and hypocrisy, is as great a monster in the moral world, as centaurs, hippogriffs, and hybrids, are in the natural; and I am disposed to reject, with equal conviction, the existence of both. Now, however, that I have returned "to the better way," and that the dark cloud which once settled over my mind has been, in a great measure, dispelled, I can declare, with perfect sincerity, that the doubt which made shipwreck of my faith was involuntary; that it bore in upon my mind in consequence of an intellectual infirmity, of which I am intensely conscious, though I cannot at this moment give it a name; and that, had the secret of my heart been known, even to the most stern and orthodox believer, he would have considered me as an object of pity rather than of blame, and as the victim of a morbid affection of mind, incompatible with moral responsibility.

My resolution was, as I have already said, taken to communicate the altered state of my opinions to my father. The discovery, I well knew, would come upon him like a clap of thunder, and I trembled for the consequences which might ensue from the shock he would receive. Though a staunch Jacobite, he was also warmly attached to the Presbyterian religion; two things which may seem incompatible to some modern Tories. The fact was, however, his Jacobitism was of a mild and modified kind. No man was more alive than he to the probable dangers which might have resulted to religion, had the family of Stuart re-ascended the throne; but, then, he was willing to run all hazards, and trust to the force of circumstances and the spirit of the age for ensuring the necessary guarantees, in or

der that Scotland-his beloved Scotland-might regain, in some measure, its independence. The act of Union, by which that independence had been destroyed, he was never weary of execrating. "Before that fatal event," he used to say, "gentlemen of small incomes, but honourable families, possessed both rank and political consequence, as their fathers had done before them; their interests were fairly and fully represented in the Great Council of the Nation, to a seat in which, at some period or other of his life, every such person might aspire; the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum was not yet corrupted by English gold, nor broken and oppressed by English influence; our political and civil rights were nearly entire, because our admirable system of law was uninvaded; our countrymen were respected abroad, because they were respectable at home, and had not yet learned the advantages of servility, because they had hitherto been strangers to subjection. No sooner, however, had the liberties of the country been bartered and higgled away by a parcel of titled miscreants, whom the curses, not loud, but deep,' of centuries to come, will not load with merited infamy, and whose names will be coupled, in the pages of history, with the indelible stigma, Vendiderunt hi auro patriam, than a death-shade overspread the land, and blighted the energies of the people. In lieu of our ancient Convention of Estates, the Commoners of Scotland were graciously allowed to send up to London fortyfive representatives, (an ominous number!) and the peerage fifteen; in return for which gracious conces sions, we received English tax-gather ers, and the English law of treason. Nothing is more common," my father would add, "than to hear grave men, and even grave historians, descant on the advantages which have resulted to Scotland from this infamous barter of her independence; but, for my part, I never could find out in what these advantages consisted, unless the circumstance of our being flung into the greedy maw of a powerful, jealous, and ambitious neighbour, be considered as such. For half a century posterior to the Union, Scotland

continued in a state of suspended animation; and if she has since aroused herself, and started forward in the career of improvement, that has not been owing to, but in spite of the connection with England. The curse of their country," he would exclaim, "will lie heavy on the descendants of those who betrayed her; and sooner shall the name of Campbell be disjoined from the remembrance of Glenco, and that of the butcherly Cumberland from the atrocities that followed the disaster of Culloden, than the names of these men be exempted from the maledictions of an injured people, and from the retribution of infamy, which they have so well earned." Such being my father's sentiments on politics, it will hardly excite surprise, that, though a staunch, but not a sour Presbyterian, he should have indulged in a sort of romantic and unique Jacobitism peculiar to himself, and that, with all the honest and blunt sincerity of his character, he should have wished well to a cause, which, had it succeeded, might have endangered the religious system to which he was attached, without effecting that alteration in the political state of his country, for the accomplishment of which, I am satisfied, that he would at any time have been ready to sacrifice his life.

He was spared the pang he must have received from hearing his son declare that he disbelieved the religion of his fathers; but it was only to bleed from a deeper, and, if possible, more envenomed wound. About this time, the French Revolution, yet in its carliest stage, had attracted the attention of all Europe, and excited a powerful sympathy with the actors in that mighty drama. Levelling principles were spreading in all direc tions like a muir-burn, and every thing seemed to prognosticate the approach of a death-struggle between the partizans of old ricketty institutions, and the myriads who had caught the democratical infection, and, with one voice, called for the assimilation of their government to that which had been organised in France. Numerous and widelyramified combinations were formed, for the purpose of giving consistency and force to the expression of the pub

lic sentiment; and it is not now matter of doubt, that, in many of these associations, designs of a more daring character were broached and discussed. A little acquainted with books, but utterly ignorant of the world, and never dreaming that there were such offences defined and punishable by the law of Scotland as lesing-making and sedition, I, in conjunction with many others of far greater experience and higher attain inents, suffered myself to be betrayed into very loud and unqualified ap. probation of what had been transacted in France, and declaimed with the utmost vehemence and enthusi asm against the inveterate and incurable abuses of all existing Governments, especially that of Britain. This naturally drew down on me the heavy brows of the Professors, and particularly of the very reverend tleman then Principal of St. Mary's; for no new opinion, good or bad, ever finds its way within the walls of a college, and the learned luminaries that haunt its cloisters seldom admit a dogma till it has stood the test of a century. The remonstrances of these venerable worshippers of the antique were, however, of no avail. I ascribed the clamour, with which they assailed liberal opinions, to a desire to please the powers that be, and sagely concluded, that, in their hearts, they were as sturdy democrats as myself. I did not then know, that the selfish have no principle but their selfishness, and that they are never chargeable with hypocrisy except when they pretend to act in opposition to their

interest.

gen

But let me not be guilty of injustice, though, from the hands of men, I have received little else. My conduct had been all along so irreproachable, and my attainments as a scholar were considered so respectable, that I am satisfied they not only wished me well, but foresaw the abyss into which I would plunge myself, by associating with desperate men, who, come what would, had nothing to hazard but their ignoble blood, should the Government be disposed to spill it; and that their remonstrances proceeded from personal kindness to myself, as well as from what they considered to be their duty. And had they only thought fit to combine

VOL. XV.

the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re, I have no doubt that their admonitions would have saved me from the precipice to which I was fast approaching, and that I should not now be inditing these painful reminiscences in the land of the stranger. They raved, bullied, talked of expulsion sine spe redeundi, abused the French, and all who had imbibed French principles, as they called them, and threatened to apprize my father of the dreadful heresy into which his son had fallen. This was enough. I am descended of a race who have never brooked menace and intimidation, and I had rather more than my own share of this hereditary infirmity. So I was content to be ruined, that I might not be dragooned into what was clearly for my good.

The curse which attends all admonition, administered by inferior minds, invested with a little brief authority, is, that it is of kin to tyranny: your admonisher puts on his important and serious physiognomy, delivers himself of his reproof with a sort of insolent and domineering selfcomplacency, and inwardly chuckles with the conscious superiority which he is called upon to exercise, and which he has no objection to impress at least as deeply on the mind of the offender as the substance of his weighty and imposing lecture: in short, you are insulted, in order that you may be convinced. The inevitable result is, that you place yourself on the defensive, and feel an irrepressible desire to return blow for blow. You may acknowledge the force of reasonable, calm, and prudential expostulation; but you recoil with indignant aversion from the oracular imbecility and impertinence of mere authority, sustained only by the conceit and insolence which it so naturally engenders in the lower orders of intellect. I shall never forget the port and demeanour of the pompous blustering bully who then' held the respectable office of Principal. He had frequently professed the greatest kindness for me, and had more than once taken an opportunity to assure me that he would be happy to do me a favour for my father's sake. For this prospective sort of patronage I was, no doubt, his debtor, N (1)

and felt becoming gratitude; but the truth was, that the worthy Principal's own credit and influence had long been on the wane, and that he had nothing in his power. However, as I never intended to put his friendship to the test, and as my family connections were such as to secure me against the humiliation of being in any respect obliged to him, I was content to have my claims, such as they were, to his peculiar grace and favour, liquidated in the currency which he had, for twenty years by gone, been in the habit of circulating. With a perfect knowledge of his character, which was that of a Turkish pasha (of I do not know how many tails) on a small scale, and with a profound contempt for every thing about him but his office, I was summoned before him.

On entering his apartment, I found him seated at a writing-desk, somewhat similar to that you ocgasionally see in the offices of country attornies, and surrounded with atlases and treatises on ancient and modern geography, a science which, if his friends and admirers" might be in aught believed," he was destined to immortalize himself by systematizing and illustrating. "Be seated, Mr Drummond," said the great man, in a voice as deep and hollow as if it had been belched from the entrails of Etna or Vesuvius. I bowed, and took my seat as directed. An awful pause of preparation now succeeded. The mountain was in labour, and I calmly awaited the act of parturition. After many throes and heavings, the crisis at last came. "Mr Drummond,-Mr Barclay Drummond!-I tell you, Sir, you have forfeited every claim to my favour and patronage," exclaimed this reverend Hercules furens, striking on the hollow board before him with his clenched fist, and looking at me with a pair of eyes like those of a hungry wolf. I was prepared for the poounter, and calmly replied, that I

felt deeply the misfortune of having incurred his displeasure; that it was a matter of unfeigned regret to me that I had not been able to adjust my opinions to his taste; that, nevertheless, I had not been able to discover what possible right he or any man could have to controul my opinions, which were my own; and that it would have been time enough to refuse me a favour when I stooped to ask it. The latter part of this reply seemed to throw him quite off his balance; it was telling him to his teeth that I despised him. His face swelled with sudden rage,—his eyeballs became fixed in their sockets,

he stared at me for a moment with a look of desperate, yet imbecile ferocity; and then the storm burst! "Sir, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you hanged as a traitor." "Not if I can help it, Principal." "Friends of the People, quotha!-friends of the devil." "There, Principal, we may claim kindred with you, though your connection is of longer standing.'

"You are a villain, Sir,-an insolent villain." "I should be sorry, Principal, under your own roof, to reply to such language as it deserves; it can only dishonour him by whom it is uttered; but permit me to tell you, since you provoke it, that if I am a villain, I am not a hoary villain,-concealing the most degrading vices under the mask of hypocritical sanctity, and thundering forth damnation against the conduct of others, that the eye of public obser vation and censure may be turned aside from my own. And, as to insolence, a man who shows no respect for the feelings of others, must lay his account with some occasional trespasses on his own." "Leave my house, Sir, instantly," roared out this bull of Bashan. I assured him he never in his life issued an order which would meet with more prompt obedience; so, rising slowly from my seat, and making a profound reves rence, I withdrew.

It is always interesting to contemplate the various subdivisions which distinguish a highly-cultivated community. Taking out of consideration those factitious distinctions which are only incidental to civilization in some of its several stages of progression, a society which has emerged from the depth of barbarism is necessarily divided into two principal classes the possessors, whether, by inheritance or otherwise, of sufficient property to render them independent of personal labour; and, secondly, that larger portion whose destiny is apparently less happy. Of the latter, a small part are generally, in consequence of their connection with the first class, enabled, by the force of a superior education, and other advantages, to pursue the more honourable and alluring professions, while the remainder are left to grope their way through the less-inviting paths of life. Of such of these last, who are compelled to drudge in the lower duties of trade, or of manual labour, it is not my intention to speak in the course of this paper, which, although commenced with so broad a view of the great social family, has reference to a particular subject: my strictures will be chiefly applicable to a middle set-to the men whose education has been far from despicable, but who have been unable to crowd into the learned professions. These are employed in various ways, and principally as assistants to the more fortunate ranks, and they may be distinguished as being either the retainers of the public, of large trading or joint-stock companies, or of private individuals.

To this class must, I think, almost exclusively attach the stigma of the poet as practisers of the insolence of office; and with most force to such of the genus who are in possession of public employments. It is but just, however, to separate the innocent from the guilty, and, as the

only legitimate object of appeals to the press is the correction of abuses which are beyond the reach of ordinary punishment, to fix, with scrupulous precision, the blame upon the proper individuals. Among the holders of office, men of independent property frequently possess the highest seats: these are candidates for renown and the fashionable distinctions of the day, and in the elation of heart consequent upon gratified ambition, are seldom insolent in the exercise of their exalted functions. On the other hand, the lowest ranks, the individuals of which are, as usual, the most numerous, are generally plodding for their daily bread, or exerting themselves in securing an inadequate provision for their families: they are too humble to be insolent, insolence being the attendant only of mistaken and low-minded pride; and are so far from being comprehended in the number of the dispensers of official insolence, that they are themselves the chief objects of the contuinely and oppression of the guilty persons. The truly guilty are the upper, not the highest or the lowest, servants of the public;—they are to be found among the comptrollers, the commissioners, the secretaries of boards, and sometimes the superior clerks of office. Of course, there are exceptions even among these; some few (sed raræ aves, &c.) owe their situations to real merit, and possess minds of too generous a character to admit the low and vulgar feelings which our censure implies. But the principal part have made their way to fifteen hundred, or two or three thousand per annum, by means, and the usual aid of opportune occurrences, in which personal worth had the least share; and the conduct of these self-im

portant persons towards their lessfortunate fellow-labourers is, as far as they dare, (and there unhappily exist but few checks upon the play